mama's li'l baby

it's that time of year again... strawberry season! yumm! there's nothing better than strawberries on, well, on just about anything. i don't know anyone that doesn't like these tasty little ground berries. today i bought 2 extra pints of beautiful organic red berries. we already had one at home and i was thinking, "strawberry shortcake". so that's what i made. so simple and so easy. i have a recipe that i've had since the days of no printer, so i don't remember the source. i think it's from allrecipies.com, but don't quote me on that!strawberry shortcake

3 pints fresh strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter (or shortening)
1 egg, lightly beaten
2/3 cup whole milk
2 cups whipping cream

wash and slice the strawberries and toss with the 1/2 cup of sugar. preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. butter an 8" cake pan, add a parchment circle and butter again. dust with flour.

in a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining 2 tbsp of sugar. cut in the butter with a pastry blender or two knives until it resembles small peas. make a well in the centre and add the egg and milk. stir until just combined.

spread the batter into your prepared cake pan. bake 15-20 minutes or until golden. let cool partially on a wire rack. slice it while the shortbread is still warm, making 2 layers. place half the strawberries on the bottom layer, top with whipped cream, replace top half and cover with remaining berries and whipped cream.

what's opera, doc?

when i think of opera, i think of bugs bunny in drag and elmer fudd in a magic golden helmet with horns. for as long as i can remember, "what's opera, doc?" (circa 1957) was always one of my favourite cartoons. another favourite of mine is "the rabbit of seville".

i love chuck jones. there's more bugs opera here. check out this creepy stop motion jim henson version of "carmen" from sesame street. i saw this as a little girl and to this day i cannot hear the main theme without seeing that creepy orange in my mind. but you didn't come here for an animation history lesson...

no, luckily this month's daring baker challenge i didn't have to recreate a cartoon opera, but make an opera cake.i had never heard of an opera cake before and was quite frightened! but, after reading the recipe i noticed that the cake itself was very much like my dad's traditional german black forest cake i made for his last 2 birthdays. the main difference was the almond meal in place of cocoa. it baked very fast, in only 7 minutes (man, i love my new oven), and had a very nice crumb to it. the simple syrup i infused with strawberry liqueur. after it cooled i put it into a measuring cup so i could make sure that each jaconde layer had equal parts of the syrup.i wanted to keep the flavours simple, and not over-power the white chocolate, and we were required to keep the colours "light". i love white chocolate. i also love strawberries. on my second trip to the liquor store looking for a strawberry liqueur, i had the tough decicion between a strawberry liqueur or a tequila-strawberry cream liquer. i didn't have any limes at home, so marie brizard it was. i macerated some sliced strawberries in sugar overnight and pureed them with the juice of one lemon the next morning. after straining the puree, i added it to the buttercream. i had a bit of trouble really understanding the recipe for the buttercream (i've never made an italian buttercream before), and, since it was allowed, i used the buttercream from the perfect party cake challenge. mmmmm!
the assembly was very straight forward and simple- once i found a ruler long enough to measure where to cut! i did decide to do the "mousse" layer: callebeut white chocolate and whipped cream. i added a touch of pink gel paste food colouring to the glaze layer to make it pink, and i sprinkled pretty pastel dragees.

*the only thing that i didn't really like was the ganache-type glaze on top. now, i don't know if it was because the cake was just out of the fridge, or because of the amount of white chocolate in it, but it was a bit gummy and smushed the mousse layer when we dove into it.

i'm not sure i'll make this again, even though it was very fun to make. who knows... maybe i'll try it in chocolate and mint! a big thank you to this month's hosts, ivonne and lis, and fran and shea for a great challenge, and don't forget to check out the other daring bakers! the recipe is quite long so if you're interested, it can be found on one of the hosts' sites.

volunteer tea

i have been feeling pretty awful this week, some type of flu. and it figures because the weather was finally great, there was a holiday on monday (victoria day), and at the end of the week was the annual "volunteer tea" at our daughter's school. the tea is to thank the parents who volunteer throughout the school year for everything they've done to make the kids' schooling richer. we've played music, baked pumpkin pies, one to one reading, scholastic book fair, made applesauce from the apples in the school garden, had a cookie factory, created art, made fossils (which was the coolest idea and one day i'll blog about that event), taken the time to plant flowers and veggies in the garden with them, sports day... the list goes on and on. the best thing is the assembly when the kids themselves say thank you to the various parents and teachers and why volunteers are so important. needless to say i was a bucket of tears this year (again actually).

every year mrs. patty wong arranges the best spread you can imagine: spiral sammies and olives, savory pastries, cheese and crackers! fresh fruit and tonnes of strawberries: mmm! oh and the sweets! don't even get me started! mrs. wong makes these raspberry lemoncream tarts that are just so wonderful and i'm going to ask her for the recipe. now, the highlight of the feast is always mrs. wong's coffee punch. you can never have just one cupfull and come to think of it, could liken a starbucks frappuccino to tasteless mush, it's so good. i asked her if it would be okay to share with the world and she looked at me and said, "why of course, dear."

mrs patty wong's coffee punch

*this needs to be made and frozen at least one day ahead

3 cups extra strong coffee (make it 3x as strong as you normally would)

2 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 quart half and half

1 pint whipping cream

brew your extra strong coffee as per your coffee maker. while hot, dissolve 2 cups sugar. add in the vanilla and cool to room temperature. stir in the half and half and cream. pour the coffee mixture into a freezer safe container until you're ready to serve it. the best way to serve is in a punch bowl, still mostly frozen- don't forget it will thaw and still be oh so yummy!